Studio Blog
Welcome to the Demand Studios Blog – a resource for writers, contributors and freelancers alike! Come here for answers to your questions, Studio news, writing tips and more.
To Source or Not to Source: Tips for Better Writing
To Source or Not to Source: Tips for Better Writing
Posted by Admin | February 12, 2009 | Leave a comment
Many of you have asked about sources. What is our policy? What kinds of sources are acceptable? Here’s the lowdown, plain and simple:
Print, broadcast and online news media all include sources in their stories. It’s a journalistic standard, and Demand Studios is no different. No, we’re not talking about our Resources field, which is used to suggest further reading or link to a reference. We’re talking about including sources within your article.
Incorporating sources and citations within your articles not only lends a tremendous amount of credibility to your work, but it can increase your article limit as well. Citations are like music to our copy editors’ ears, and they are less likely to send an article back if you include them within your text. The quality of your work will be higher, and therefore, the perception of you as a professional writer will be better as well. In short, it does nothing but benefit you as a writer—inside and outside of Demand Studios—to include sources within your articles.
When incorporating sources within your article, be sure to cite them. If you pull information from a source, such as a stat, attribute it (ie: According to BLANK). If you quote an exact phrase, put it in quotation marks and attribute it. If you summarize a study, credit it.
Some credible sources we look for are scholarly books and journals, studies, organizations (such as the American Cancer Society) and professionals (for example, if you’re writing an article on how to cope with divorce, quoting a marital psychologist is great). If you’re relying on the Web for your article, search with caution. We’ve said this before, and we’ll say it again: Don’t use Wikipedia. Likewise, don’t use any general informational sites such as: About.com, wikiHow.com, Ask.com, HowStuffWorks.com, AssociatedContent.com, HowToDoThings.com, Helium.com, Suite101.com, etc. Any sites that end in .gov, .edu and .org are—for the most part—reliable resources.
- Jennifer
Print, broadcast and online news media all include sources in their stories. It’s a journalistic standard, and Demand Studios is no different. No, we’re not talking about our Resources field, which is used to suggest further reading or link to a reference. We’re talking about including sources within your article.
Incorporating sources and citations within your articles not only lends a tremendous amount of credibility to your work, but it can increase your article limit as well. Citations are like music to our copy editors’ ears, and they are less likely to send an article back if you include them within your text. The quality of your work will be higher, and therefore, the perception of you as a professional writer will be better as well. In short, it does nothing but benefit you as a writer—inside and outside of Demand Studios—to include sources within your articles.
When incorporating sources within your article, be sure to cite them. If you pull information from a source, such as a stat, attribute it (ie: According to BLANK). If you quote an exact phrase, put it in quotation marks and attribute it. If you summarize a study, credit it.
Some credible sources we look for are scholarly books and journals, studies, organizations (such as the American Cancer Society) and professionals (for example, if you’re writing an article on how to cope with divorce, quoting a marital psychologist is great). If you’re relying on the Web for your article, search with caution. We’ve said this before, and we’ll say it again: Don’t use Wikipedia. Likewise, don’t use any general informational sites such as: About.com, wikiHow.com, Ask.com, HowStuffWorks.com, AssociatedContent.com, HowToDoThings.com, Helium.com, Suite101.com, etc. Any sites that end in .gov, .edu and .org are—for the most part—reliable resources.
- Jennifer
